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-If we are looking at uni-parental markers at what date is it appropriate to deem the origin of a SNP "African"? If we ignore the dates, do we then look at a geographical point of origin of a particular SNP to classify it as "African" or something else?

-When going by Autosomal runs what is is more appropriate: One run may show a population of Arabs (Jordanians) to share about 9% of ancestral clusters with Sub Saharan Africans while another run will show that same populations to share about 25% of ancestral clusters with Sub Saharan Africans. [180% Increase]

I opened up a previous thread HERE about this same issue. In short a Yemeni Sample's "African" % in creases from 6% to 15% when when using the East African Maasai instead of West African Yoruba as the reference population[150% Increase] The study notes this:

These data suggest that the source population for the African ancestry of the Yemeni population is more similar to the contemporary Maasai population than either the Luhya or Yoruba.

I think we need to classify exactly what is "African" and use multiple lines of evidence before the question can be properly answered. With the tools that we have if it can be demonstrated that a Horn African in a structure run is 30-4x% "South West Asian".........then I personally feel confident that "African" Admixture amongst "Arabs" Is probably a uniform % no less that 15% and could reach upwards to as much as some Arabs being "Half African".

I find it interesting that there are Arabs, particularly in Oman and Yemen that look East African yet there are no East Africans that look Arab....East Africa of course being one of the Major sources of South West Asian admixture.

---------- Post added 2011-02-21 at 17:01 ----------

Originally Posted by Bandar Qasim

That's because the West Eurasian ancestry of Maghrebians is mainly from S.Europe, while the Arabians' West Eurasian derived ancestry is native to the Arabian peninsula and therefore quite dark/non-European looking.

Also do we ever take into account such differences could just be geographical and related to Climate and being out of the "Tropics"?

This thread is making the mistake of grouping North Africans with Southwest Asians.

North Africans possess African ancestry because they are fundamentally an African population. They are bioculturally rooted in the African continent and are therefore genetically, culturally, and linguistically intertwined with other African populations. Only in Africa, are people indigenous to the continent questioned about their affiliation with other groups indigenous to the continent. North Africans first and foremost, are the descendants of Saharo-Tropical African populations. Meaning, the foundational component of the N.African population expanded into the region from further south. The oldest parental lineages (both yDNA and mtDNA) in N.Africa are approximately ~20,000 years old and are downstream mutations of lineages found in the general NE African region, Sudan and the Horn of Africa. Is it a coincidence that both Egyptians and Maghrebians speak Afrasan languages, of the Egyptian and Berber sub-groups? Highlighting at a linguistic level, an expansion of Afrasan from NE Africa into North Africa. This together with archeology and genetics indicates a migration from the area of the Eastern Sudan/Eritrea/Ethiopia into North Africa. With it being more continuous in Egypt in contrast to the Maghreb, but that should be obvious, no? They are then a result of admixture via Western Eurasia and West Africa. With the both components initially penetrating the region relatively early, 10,000-13,000 BP and 15,000 BP respectively. There would have then been some historical admixture as well from both sides, but it's likely that the bulk of the admixture would have already taken place. Outside of Egypt really, most of the non-indigenous admixture is historic... entering the country mainly during the Greco-roman and Islamic era's. These two components have a negative-positive relationship with one another, with West African admixture decreasing when Eurasian ancestry is more dominant and with Eurasian admixture decreasing when West African admixture is more dominant. North Africans are therefore an old world mulatto population to put it simply, they are the result of admixture. According to Tishkoff et al. 2009 and 2009 the Mozabite Berbers are 50% Eurasian-African Saharan (the end result of the bidirectional gene-flow between North Africa and Western Eurasia), 35% Cushitic (the foundational base for the population), and 15% West African (a late arrival into the scene).

Phenotype doesn't equal genotype.
Riffian and Kabyle Berbers just so happen to resemble each other because they inhabit a similar environment, a colder and mountainous environment. Atlas and Mozabite Berbers resemble each other because they inhabit a similar environment, a more arid and humid environment. It is not a coincidence that they resemble each other. And they are all isolated and impoverished groups, so you can't blame it on the slave trade. The Slave trade didn't leave pan-national or pan-regional genetic alternations, consequences of the slave trade are for the most part individual and are regionally sporadic. Northerly NW Africans likely all group tightly close to each other, with some regional variations... but still relatively close.

Southwest Asia is a different story. These people are not African and are not the direct descendants of Saharo-Tropical African populations. They just so happened to have taken part in the bidirectional flow between North Africa and Western Eurasia. There is a fundamental difference between Semitic speaking SW Asians and non-Semitic speaking SW Asians. The only real exceptions being the Assyrians, Druze, and recent Jewish populations; who happen to be more like SW Asians in Turkey, the Caucasus, and Iran. NE African admixture likely arrived relatively early in the region with the arrival of Semitic languages and particular parental lineages. Something supported by archeology. This likely represents about ~15-20% of the genetic diversity among most Semitic speaking SW Asians outside of Yemen, where it likely reaches ~30%. Now, there hasn't been any peer-reviewed studies that really delved into the above subject at a autosomal level, but there has been some amateur runs that support my theory. One of Dienekes most recent STRUCTURE runs matched those of a particular amateur geneticist. While the frequencies of the Ethiopians, Saudis, and Bedouins were likely not representative of reality, the findings of the other SW Asians matched the findings of this particular individual. NE African admixture then drops off when you move into Turkey, the Caucasus, and Iran... where it is only found at a frequency of 5-10%. Assyrians and Druze also possess lower frequencies of this particular component, possibly indicating a language shift? Jews are Jews... their historical adopted homes likely played role in their decreased frequencies of the NE African component, if not they would have likely resembled Palestinians.

The West African admixture in the M.East is most definitely from the Slave trade. It's sporadic as slave era admixture should be and is only really significant among populations with a large slave African descended population, like Basra Iraq and southern Iran. It likely peaks in Yemen and Oman at around 15-20%, but drops to less than 5% in Lebanon and Syria where the slave trade was not that important. According to one of Dienekes most recent runs, West African admixture was found at a frequency of 5-7% among SW Asians in 4 countries/regions (Bedouins, Palestine, Makrani Pakistan, and Jordan), outside of Yemen where it reached 17%.

I hope this doesn't cause any controversy or backlash. The above is supported and does have a academic basis.

technically the first haplogroup-E carriers back migrated into east africa from euroasia and then after they colonized and mixed with local people there they moved on to colonize north africa.

technically the first haplogroup-E carriers back migrated into east africa from euroasia and then after they colonized and mixed with local people there they moved on to colonize north africa.

So East africa is also an ancient mulatto region.

Not at all, its widely recognized as the reverse. This is why theres only 2 subclades of E in the middle east and are all RECENT downstreams, now if t here where middle easteners or europeans who where E* and E1* i'd buy it, but so far this has only been found in Africa, specifically "sub-saharan" Africa. Also alot of East Africans aren't even E many of them are B and A, Khoisanid related Y chromosomes.

Not at all, its widely recognized as the reverse. This is why theres only 2 subclades of E in the middle east and are all RECENT downstreams, now if t here where middle easteners or europeans who where E* and E1* i'd buy it, but so far this has only been found in Africa, specifically "sub-saharan" Africa. Also alot of East Africans aren't even E many of them are B and A, Khoisanid related Y chromosomes.

nope you're wrong and what i said is the most likely scenario. the E-haplogroup is highly related to the CDEF-M168 mutation which is its ancestor.

and this is an important argument to why the E-haplogroup is likely Euroasian in origin, and it also explains why A and B is present in east africa, and ultimately explains why sub-saharans are the most genetically diverse, because they are highly admixed.

"The population that left East Africa to colonize the world -- including other parts of Africa -- carried only CT and L3. We know this because if A, B and L0-L2 had already been present in that population, then those haplogroups would have colonized the world too. But they didn't. Therefore, modern Ethiopians(and other horners) have ancestry that the original East Africans (i.e. OOA migrants) didn't have, so they're not representative"

that means that the CDEF-M168 ancestors where already differentiated and a distinct population from the paleoafricans who where A,B and L0-L2, in other words there was sub-structure in africa before the OOA migration. and then the euroasians returned to africa and mixed with the paleoafricans creating todays sub-saharans whose paternal markers came from euroasia.

technically the first haplogroup-E carriers back migrated into east africa from euroasia and then after they colonized and mixed with local people there they moved on to colonize north africa.

So East africa is also an ancient mulatto region.

^ thats an lol moment. We've already gone over this debate, and the overwhelming evidence points to E's origin in Africa. Period, and even if there was a back-migration, the people back-migrating weren't "Eurasian" in the same context as today's non-Africans. E is the dominant marker in all of Africa, representing 70% of the diversity in Africa. If "East Africa's" mulatto, so is the entire continent.

Were did you get your information from? Mathilda?

However, several discoveries made since the Hammer articles are thought to make an Asian origin less likely:
Underhill and Kivisild (2007) demonstrated that C and F have a common ancestor, meaning that DE has only one sibling which is non African.
DE* is found in both Asia and Africa, meaning that not only one, but several siblings of D are found in Africa.
Karafet et al. (2008), in which Hammer is a co-author, significantly rearranged time estimates leading to "new interpretations on the geographical origin of ancient sub-clades".[1] Amongst other things this article proposed a much older age for haplogroup E than had been considered previously, giving it a similar age to Haplogroup D, and DE itself, meaning that there is no longer any strong reason to see it as an offshoot of DE which must have happened long after DE came into existence and had entered Asia.

"Peter Underhill states that there will always be uncertainty regarding the precise origins of DNA sequence variants such as YAP because of a lack of knowledge concerning prehistoric demographics and population movements. However Underhill contends that with all the available information, the African origin of the YAP+ polymorphism is more parsimonious and more plausible than the Asian origin hypothesis. Other authors who have published or co-published works in support of an African origin the YAP+ include Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, Toomas Kivisild, Spencer Wells, Linda Stone and Paul F. Lurquin."

^ lol at me using Wikipedia, but it gets the job done.

DE* has been found in Africa (more than a dozen across Africa), more so than Asia (2 in Tibet).

---------- Post added 2011-03-10 at 17:53 ----------

Originally Posted by Falsetruth

nope you're wrong and what i said is the most likely scenario. the E-haplogroup is highly related to the CDEF-M168 mutation which is its ancestor.

and this is an important argument to why the E-haplogroup is likely Euroasian in origin, and it also explains why A and B is present in east africa, and ultimately explains why sub-saharans are the most genetically diverse, because they are highly admixed.

"The population that left East Africa to colonize the world -- including other parts of Africa -- carried only CT and L3. We know this because if A, B and L0-L2 had already been present in that population, then those haplogroups would have colonized the world too. But they didn't. Therefore, modern Ethiopians(and other horners) have ancestry that the original East Africans (i.e. OOA migrants) didn't have, so they're not representative"

that means that the CDEF-M168 ancestors where already differentiated and a distinct population from the paleoafricans who where A,B and L0-L2, in other words there was sub-structure in africa before the OOA migration. and then the euroasians returned to africa and mixed with the paleoafricans creating todays sub-saharans whose paternal markers came from euroasia.

But I know you meant SSA. North africa probably has more SSA than the Middle East (Yemen or Saudi Arabia has the most negroid blood out of the Middle East I think) especially Mauritania, Sudan, and Morocco.

I'm fairly certain Yemeni populations were found to be far more heterogeneous racially than Saudis (and other gulf Arabs).

Originally Posted by Firmus

We obviously could not even consider Northern Sudan as part of North Africa, they are more likely to fit into the Horn of Africa despite they are Arab wannabees.
They hardly pass for Arabians or Berbers (those without recent SSA input).

Why? Northern Sudan isn't located in the horn? It lies in the sahara (more precisely in the sahel―most of the horn lies outside the sahel belt, asides from parts of Eritrea).

Furthermore, phenotype has no bearing on a country's geopolitical affiliation. One only need to look at countries like Argentina (predominantly Euro-descended), Mexico (pred mestizo), and the Dominican Republic (pred mulatto), all identify as Latin American.

The northern Sudanese have more in common (culturally) with me and you than they do Ethios.

Originally Posted by Bandar Qasim

On average Northwest Africans (Berbers/Moroccans) are the most Sub-Saharan out of the 'Arab world', followed by Egypt and Yemen and then the rest Arabian peninsula.

Of the "Arab world," I'd argue that it's pretty much a tie between Mauritania and northern Sudan, then Egypt, then Morocco (I'm incorporating western Sahara).

That depends on what you consider sub-Saharan. When Bandar Qasim tried out ADMIXTURE and chose Oromos from areas close to the Kenyan border to represent SSA, Egyptians were 30-40% East African (Borana Oromo). In Dienekes' old ADMIXTURE runs, Egyptians were around 20% sub-Saharan, with the vast majority of that belonging to an East African cluster that peaks in the Maasai, and a couple of percent West African. Maghrebis are 20-30% sub-Saharan before creating their own cluster. I have heard that those Egyptians are from the north, but I have not asked Behar to confirm this.

With no East African cluster and a simple sub-Saharan cluster that peaks in West Africa, Egyptians are clearly less sub-Saharan than Moroccans. Maghrebis cluster closer to Horners than those Egyptian samples in global plots. However, Egyptians are still closer to Horners in terms of genome-wide similarity (IBS, ASD) than Maghrebis are. Probably due to the shared ancient ancestry that is evident in many uniparental markers.

I'm fairly certain Yemeni populations were found to be far more heterogeneous racially than Saudis (and other gulf Arabs).

Indeed, Yemenis are heterogeneous, and this seems to be the result of recent Bantu ancestry, mainly. The Saudis sampled so far are clearly more homogeneous. I share with one Saudi guy at 23andMe, and many Europeans are closer to me genetically than he is.